Many activities in music classes require music accompaniment. Of course it is best to play suitable music by yourself. However, sometimes this is not possible - perhaps you have to lead the kids in those activities, or you simply can't play a suitable instrument. 
The CDs below (Djingalla series) are a great match for a variety of activities for kids. We also use some pieces for our classes.

Here is the recording of our webinar which explains how some parts of Gregorian Chant can be used in preschool music education. We hope you will find it interesting and useful. Let us know your thoughts. 

it is time to prepare to start the next school year.
We want you to make the most out of it, so we prepared a special gift for you: our Kindle book How to introduce Music to Kids  will be available for free download from Saturday until Wednesday. It is designed to give you simple and useful advice regarding how to develop musical talents and skills of your kids.
We hope you will use it!

We are preparing a lecture about preschool voice development. We would like to know which issues do you find most important and interesting - is it physical aspect of producing the voice (vocal cords, diaphragm), choosing the right songs, movement activities which support proper singing, or perhaps something else? Let us know your thoughts! Thank you for your feedback.

This year we are celebrating the 50th anniversary of the movie The sound of music. It has become one of the most popular movies ever, a great musical, with plenty of useful resources for music education. 

It is one of my favorite movies. I was very happy to be at the Orff summer school in Salzburg this summer - Salzburg is the city where the story takes place. Me and my friends have also visited the most important places from the movie. 

This is the way to the Frohnburg castle - Maria sang her "I have confidence" when she came to work for the von Trapp family.

This are the front and the back side of the Frohnburg castle - now it is the student home for the Orff Institute. 

The "Do-Re-Mi" song was performed on these stairs, too - they are in the Mirabell park. 

The buildings on the main square, which were occupied by Nazis.

The back yard of the von Trapp residence with the lake was filmed at Leopoldskron palace.

The love scenes in the pavillion were filmed elsewhere, but the pavillion was later transferred to the park at the Hellbrunn castle.

The kids went to look for Maria when she returned to the monastery - at the Nonnberg monastery. 

If you want to be really good, you need to keep improving your knowledge and skills. A good teacher needs to constantly learn, to stay up-to-date, fresh, with new teaching ideas. I am happy I have attended the Orff Summer School in Salzburg, Austria, this summer. There were many great teachers, doing their workshops, but I have also found experience from other fellow teachers very interesting. Attending an event like this is really valuable. I try to attend (at least) one every year.
On the other hand, it is also useful to test new things. Very often during the classes you don't have plenty of time to try out something new, or a complex activity that needs a lot of time. We have had summer music school for kids for several years. It usually takes 3 consecutive days, which is enough even to prepare a simple performance for the parents at the end. Also, you have plenty of time to do various activities that may not be applicable during the school year, or to try out something new. 
It is true that it may be very difficult for someone to attend a live event (workshops) especially if it is far away. Luckily, there are many possibilities to learn something online. We are also opening our Custom Crash Course in the near future.  You are very welcome to learn something new from us!

It was a great pleasure to participate at the workshops, held by Michel Widmer. At the end we also recorded a short interview.

There were plenty of useful information available. What I found best were approaches how to use boomwhackers (great activities can be found in his book - see below) in groups and ideas how to make instruments yourself. If you are a music teacher, you have to be a 'sounds collector' also. We always get some new instruments on our travels. However, it is really not too difficult to make some instruments on your own.

If you are interested in better ways to do music education - join us at the webinar and learn what does Gregorian Chant have to do with preschool music education . The webinar will take place on Thursday, 30th July. Click here to register! 

We have participated at the Orff summer school in Salzburg between 5th and 12th July. It was a wonderful experience. The whole city of Salzburg is devoted to music - Mozart is present everywhere.

The summer school was very fulfilling - a lot of new ideas and a lot of new friends from around the world.
Orff Schulwerk fits very well with what we do and teach. Everyone is able to participate in making music and enjoy in the process. 

Some movies really show very well how important is the music education for kids and what is the best way to do it.

My personal favorite is the evergreen Sound of Music

The Sound of Music movie is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year. It is a beautiful story about the influence of music to the education and development of children (and sometimes adults, too). 

I also loved the movie Music of the heart. It shows what a good music teacher is all about and how important is a good teacher to children.

The movie Mr. Holland's Opus shows how much satisfaction can a teacher get, even if he doesn't expect it.